Neither Heaven Nor Earth (Ni Le Ciel Ni La Terre)

Director: Clément CogitoreCountry: France/BelgiumYear: 2015Runtime: 103 minutesLanguage: French and Persian with English subtitles

These soldiers came looking for the enemy, but something else found them first – Afghanistan 2014. As the withdrawal of French troops approaches, Captain Antares Bonassieu and his squad have been assigned a surveillance mission in a remote valley of Wakhan, on the border of Pakistan. Despite Antares and his men's determination, control of the secluded valley will slowly fall out of their hands. One dark night, his soldiers begin to mysteriously disappear. In his first feature, Clément Cogitore transforms the dusty Afghan landscape into a setting for a breathtaking metaphysical thriller, recalling the eerie mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock and the paranoid horror of John Carpenter’s The Thing.